It is important that all types of radioactive waste in a country are considered when the policies and strategies are developed. Most countries operating a nuclear power plant or considering introducing nuclear power are likely to also have radioactive waste from non-power applications of nuclear tech­nology, e. g. from the use of radioisotopes in medicine and research or from operating research reactors. Although the volumes of waste from such applications normally would be smaller than from nuclear power produc­tion, they often have special characteristics that need to be considered.

As has been noted above, the present practice for reprocessing compa­nies is to return the waste separated during the reprocessing to the country of origin, which thus needs to be considered in the planning if the reproc­essing route is followed. Also the other steps in the fuel cycle will generate some radioactive waste that needs to be taken care of, e. g. mill tailings from uranium mining, depleted uranium from uranium enrichment and ILW from MOX fabrication. These wastes are normally kept by the supplier. In the case of depleted uranium they are seen as a resource for future use in fast neutron reactors. If a country develops its own fuel cycle capacity, the waste also needs to be considered in the national strategy.